Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on 6 March 1806 in Durham, England, the first of eleven children of wealthy businessman Edward Moulton Barrett. She was able to read at the age of four, wrote her first poems at the age of six and wrote dramas at the age of ten. As a teenager, the passionate horsewoman fell off her horse. The consequences were lifelong headaches and back pain, which made it difficult for her to sit and walk. In 1846, she secretly marries the poet R. Browning, six years her junior, and flees with him to Florence. Her son Robert was born in 1849. Until her death from a lung disease in 1861, the writer, the centre of a circle of artists and intellectuals in Florence, remained active in poetry and politics. She stood up for the unity of Italy and against slavery in the United States and fought against poverty and the misery of children. During her lifetime, she was already regarded as England's most important poet and was nominated for the Poet Laureate several times.